Saint Ardella

So, Gizmo came to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us. We brought him home after going to Keri and Ryan's for dinner. This was the first dinner that Keri and Ryan have hosted that included both families. We had a good time, especially listening to childhood memories and things our children swore we did, but that I highly doubt. We had a wonderful ham (that reminded me of Virginia ham), potatoes that will become a new tradition, salad, and roasted asparagus. And spiced cider - I had the unspiked version.

Anyway, Gizmo was delightful as usual and it always surprises me how well he can keep up and hold his own with our dogs. Ardella is just fascinated by Gizmo and displays a lot of patience and gentleness around him. Gizmo can get carried away, but he adores Ardella.



He would like Aidan more if Aidan had the patience level of Ardella, but mostly Aidan hides from Gizmo. He did get at least 1 or 2 times of playing tug with him though, as displayed below.



Everyone got together at our house on Christmas day (dinner included turkey and sides we hadn't cooked before, like smoked paprika roasted carrots, and Trader Joes fruit tarts for dessert). We ate a lot. The dogs left us alone because I had frozen quality canned dog food in Kongs for them to eat instead of dry kibble. After dinner they continued to play. What amused me most was when Gizmo got Ardella by the drag line and tried to pull her around the living room. He was so excited by that.





It got a little old for Ardella.



Here she is trying to get some sympathy from Sue, Ryan's mother.



The game ended eventually, and Ardella never showed any irritation towards Gizmo whatsoever. I'm pleased that she is this way with puppies - it gives me hope that we'll be able to raise a puppy again sooner than I thought.

We had a nice Christmas, especially the company. I'll add books, CDs, TV series, etc. later. I have to go back to work.

Christmas Greetings from Gizmo

I think that's the cutest picture ever. My daughter sent it out as a Christmas Greeting on Facebook and I stole the picture. She knows where to find me if she is going to sue me. I get to bring Gizmo home tomorrow night to keep through Christmas day.

Ardella is "in the doghouse" for doing unspeakable things. I hope to be over her behavior by Saturday when Annalynn (or Annie as she appears to be called now) comes over to spend the afternoon and evening. It will be a wild time and I can't wait!

I'm knee deep in Christmas projects, most of which will be not be done for Christmas, but that's the way it goes. I'm giving a lot of IOU's this year.

Why We Are Not Decorating for Christmas This Year

The tree has long been knocked down. We gave up.

Theo is mischievous as well and Lyn's old coat has been a hiding source as it has hung on the kitchen chairs (and I believe that old holey coat is now ready to be retired as a cat hideout).



Elma is gone. We took her up to campus yesterday. She should be in the Pendleton area by now with her new family.

Surfer dog

My friend Kate sent me this today. It made me cry (in a good way). Thanks, Kate!

Elma leaving us

It's time to say goodbye to Elma. She'll be leaving us at the end of the week. I admit I had hoped we could keep her for a longer period of time, but she needs to go to an experienced family and work on some things that I don't have the experience to tackle. I hate goodbyes when puppies leave early. It's like they enter the Witness Protection Program - okay, they don't - but it sure feels like they do. I don't know where McCoy is, for instance, and as a puppy sitter I imagine I won't hear anything about Elma. I have to accept this is good for the puppies sometimes. I'll be spending the next few days playing and cuddling with Elma. It sure has been great to have a puppy in the house these last few weeks and I'll miss her when she's gone.

On a happier note, my Loopy Ewe swap package arrived yesterday from Danielle in California.





The socks (Embossed Leaves)are gorgeous and feel wonderful. The Almond Roca is taking my mind off my sorrows (1 more piece and then I'm letting the men in the house finish it off), and I'm waiting for the weekend to drink the coffee and listen to the CD. I'm looking forward to knitting the Pineapple Sock pattern with that gorgeous Lorna's Laces. It was a great package. I loved everything.

I should be finished with the project I'm knitting for my swap partner this evening. It will be off to her as soon as it's washed and dried. I'll try to remember to take a picture before I send it off.

A Day of Agility

We still have little Elma. I'm not sure how much longer. Her raiser is going to be in a cast for 6 to 8 weeks and I'm not sure if I'm keeping Elma for the entirety of that time or if she's being transferred elsewhere. I'm waiting to hear. In the meantime, we've started working with Elma on sit and wait, which she's catching onto well, and learning how to behave around cats and dogs which she's slower to catch onto, but I've been able to get her to sit quietly with Ardella for a few minutes. We still have to keep the dogs separated, which is working out fine. Walking is our biggest challenge, but it's been so cold that I haven't wanted to go outside more than I have to. I also took Elma to get her shots this week. She got the rabies vaccine, which surprised me. I thought they got that at 6 months. Elma is affectionate and mischievous. I really like her, but it's not up to me to decide what happens with her and I'm okay with whatever decision is made. I do like these long-term puppy sitting assignments.

An example of how cold it's been is this fountain at a house Lyn passes by when he walks the dogs. He liked the ice sculpture the frozen water made.



It's been dry and cold, not wet and cold as usual, and everyone's skin is dry and itchy. We were supposed to get freezing rain today, but fortunately that hasn't materialized. We're going back to rain as usual and I think I'm glad.

I started my shift in the cattery at the humane society. I help socialize cats and help with cat visiting for potential adopters. I really like it - I get to hold cats and get to send cats home with people. Since adopting Willow, I've gotten the urge for more cats out of my system and can concentrate on enabling others to adopt. Willow is doing very well in our household, by the way. She's been a good addition and she's wonderful with dogs, sometimes clueless, but mostly wonderful.

Ardella went to agility today. This was the fourth week and her best one, I think. Agility has been really good for both of us in terms of boosting confidence. I'm learning not to go coddle her when she falls off things and to encourage her to get back and not quit when she starts acting stressed. It's very rewarding to see her confidence build throughout the agility session. Lyn took a few pictures during class today. They're a little blurry, but we were in motion.

The first station was the chute, one of Ardella's favorites.



From the chute, she was supposed to go over a jump, but we didn't get a picture of any of the jumps today.

Next was the dog walk - something Ardella did surprisingly well (I really need to stop being so protective). This is where Ardella fell off, but we were told to keep walking her, then pet her, and then made her get right back on, which she did without hesitation. She just needs to slow down.



Next was the teeter-totter, which we call teeter, and Ardella was very stressed over this activity last week. Katy, the instructor, worked with us and she was a pro by the time we finished that station.





Then we did a patterned routine where Ardella jumped through a tire, then went to the A-Frame, down the A-Frame to a table, sat (although not shown sitting here), and then went through a tunnel.







I don't have a picture of Ardella walking through the weaving poles, but that is something she does very well. Today we were able to take away the guides and she had few problems weaving between the poles.

So, that's what we do in agility. We have 2 more classes and then I need to decide what we're going to do next. We're having fun in agility, but I'm eager to do more obedience.

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I found one more of Elma's littermates, a male named Ellery. It looks like I'm going to be holding on to Elma for awhile, I'm not sure how long yet.

Norine is here. Look for a story about her on the Guide Dog web page in a week or so. I talked with her today and things are going great with Santino. We won't be able to visit, but I'll see her when I go back east in the spring.

are you gonna be there (at the craft fair)?

We like to participate in one good craft fair every year around the holidays. Since Felt Club is no longer in operation (???) BUST magazine's Craftacular has decided to stop in L.A. I think this is a worthy substitution. Right in the center of Echo Park, the Craftacular will take over the Echo and the Echoplex this Saturday. Come for the handmade goodies, stay for the Grilled Cheese Truck.

Elma

This little cutie is Elma. We're puppy sitting her while her raiser recuperates from a fall injury. She's an adorable bundle of energy. Elma is a Dutch/Grove puppy born August 9 of this year. Interestingly, we've only located 1 other puppy in this litter. Can anyone help us find the Dutch/Grove litter? Elma's raiser raised Grove and has asked about finding the other puppies.

Tonight Ryan, Lyn and I celebrated Keri's birthday at Salvador Molly's in Portland. This is a wonderful restaurant with food inspired by world cuisine that is home to the Balls of Fire - Habanero fritters - the famous fritters where if you eat 5 fritters plus the Habanero salsa in 5 minutes you get your picture taken and it joins the Wall of Flame collection of people who have survived the experience. Ryan ate one fritter once and he said it burned for 20 minutes. I passed, but a man at the table next to us ordered and we all watched to see if fire would come out of his mouth. The food was delicious. I had Jerk Chicken (really half a cornish game hen), peas and rice, corn fritters, and spinach side salad. We split 2 orders of coconut/pineapple bread pudding with a vanilla sauce. Yum. I definitely want to go back there.

Ardella and Annalynn worked with Cathie Laber on Friday and Cathie did an amazing job considering that Ardella and Annalynn are not working on identical issues. For Ardella, I'm interested in helping her cope with dogs in the neighborhood who may be off leash or a little aggressive towards her. The issue isn't so much teaching Ardella what to do as to teach me what to do. We worked on having a loose leash to prevent posturing (which can lead to a dog attacking another, and also is a sign of developing leash aggression), sitting to keep the tail up and out of a "scorpion" position, and observing Ardella using calming signals to let other dogs know she isn't interested in them. It was very interesting. She did everything I read about in the book Calming Signals and I really had thought she was not able to use these signals. She uses them very well. Cathie said there really isn't a manual of one technique to use when encountering aggressive dogs. It's a matter of me being able to read the dog's language and to take the leader role and take action. We went to Karren's house for this first session, but the next session we'll meet at my house and work more with Ardella in her own environment.

Ardella did another great job at agility today. She tackled the A-frame and dog walk amazingly well. The see-saw about did her in, but that was her first station and her confidence rose with each successive station. She loves the chute and will go down it when I'm not closely watching her.

I finished The Owl Killers and think that is one of my favorite books for 2009. I liked it so much I bought it for Keri as a birthday gift.

font of the week-odstemplik

Seeing as it is officially a recession, we've decided to highlight a free font we've been loving over here at Flora and Fauna. We never have enough scripts, and it's nice to find one that is not to 'flourishy' yet still retains the elegant qualities of a script. 

Download it here  for free.